Stebbins looked at her, and shifted uneasily in his chair.
“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” he began, “I played a silly trick or two, but it was only in fun. When I see they took it seriously, I quit.”
“Yes, I know all that,” and the impatient visitor shook a prompting little forefinger at him. “I know everything you said and did to scare those people into fits, and when they wouldn’t scare, but just lapped up your spook rackets, you quit, as you say, and then,—they took up the business themselves.”
“You sure of that?”
“I am,—certain. Also, I know who did it. What I’m after is to find out a few missing ways and means. Now, you were a tricksy Puck, weren’t you, when you moved the old battered candlestick that first night? And it did no harm, that I admit. It roused their curiosity, and started the spook ball rolling. Then, as a ghost, you appeared to Mr. Bruce, didn’t you?”
“Well, I—did,” Stebbins grudgingly confessed, forced by the compelling black eyes, “I just wrop a shawl over my head, and spooked in. But nobody believed his yarn about it.”
“No; they thought Mr. Bruce made up the story, because he had said he would trick them if he could.”
“Yep, I know that,” agreed Stebbins, eagerly. “Then once again, I played spook, and that time, Miss Carnforth was a sleepin’ in that ha’nted room. You see, I expected it would be one o’ the men, and when I see a woman——”
“You were more scared than she was!” Zizi leaned eagerly forward, almost spilling off her chair, in her interested attention.
“I believe I was,” said Stebbins, solemnly. “Anyways, I went out, vowin’ never to do any more spook work,—and I never did.”